What's to be said about a game that tries its very best to be fun and cute, but winds up being so frustrating that any potential for fun dissolves like a slug under a stream of salt?

Glob by Prime 8 Entertainment is an action game that revolves around safely steering a little blobby fellow. This "gelatinous little oddball," as he's described, looks a lot like a brain-sucking Metroid from the popular Nintendo series. Glob's titular protagonist, however, is infinitely more fragile (though at least he's not vulnerable to the ice beam).

Players propel Glob forward by pressing and holding the screen just behind his squishy bod. Alternatively, pressing the screen in front of him sends him scuttling off in the opposite direction. Removing one's finger from the screen slows him down. These controls are very easy to get a feel for, but it won't be enough to prevent one infuriating death after another. Each level in the game is lined with crystalline shards that will pop Globby like a Jell-O filled balloon if he even brushes against them.

Problem is, the player must navigate some extremely tight corridors, and momentum pushes Glob around like nobody's business. It doesn't matter how gently the player touches the screen. Glob will inevitably ding against the side of the geode walls and explode like one of Dig Dug's victims.

Worse, each level in Glob is peppered with traps galore. There are proximity mines, shards that continuously protrude and recede from the walls, and so on. Glob can use powers like slime, ice, and explosions to get rid of these traps or even just slow them down, but using these talents requires him to collect fuel first. Unsurprisingly, said fuel is often located dangerously close to the ever-deadly walls.

Glob looks great, and it has some good ideas (like being able to customize Glob). There's obviously a lot of thought and care behind its concept. However, it's just not fun to play a game where one dies over and over again, regardless of how carefully they move. It's even less fun to sit through loading screens when retrying a level. Glob will need a considerable tune-up before it becomes a solid recommendation.

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